Demographic archetypes

Demographics can be expressed in a number of ways in openEHR data. This is due to the common situation where demographic information is already stored and managed in administrative or accounting software. In France it is required to separate this information.

For this reason, openEHR has been designed to reference demographic information rather than repeating it in the health record. HL7 and CCR as documents to be shared in a stand-alone environment carry the demographic information with the other content and include or reference it from another part of the document.

CKM contains two sorts of demographic archetypes, reflecting the different ways different standards manage this information and also requirements within operational systems.

First, the demographic clusters and elements that are in the EHR model archetypes. These are for information stored within the EHR and are written using EHR classes.

The second are archetypes on the openEHR demographic model. These are quite separate and support the use of archetypes and the openEHR demographic model to provide highly functional patient master index systems and the like. They are NOT for storing information within the EHR. It is worth noting that the demographic and EHR models share data structures - trees, clusters and elements - so you might see some models of these classes within the demographic archetypes. The ID will contain DEMOGRAPHIC rather than EHR.